Novus Partus
by Jack Hargreave
Summary: A lost man makes his way towards Etro s temple in search for answers. What he doesn't find marks the beginning of the end... "Name change due to demand from anonymous"


**Hello, and thank you for taking your time to read my first contribution to Final Fantasy 13 and fanfiction in general for quite a while. **

**This is a story inspired by what have been revealed about Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy 13, so far.**

**Just a heads-up! There are no pairings in this story, since I don't want to mess up the canon in more ways than necessary. **

**I hope you enjoy this story, and urge you to leave a comment. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy 13 or any other assets mentioned in this story.**

_**Novus Partus**_

The former director of the Academy slowly made his way towards the throne room of Etro's temple. He didn't really know how long it had been since his last visit. Months? Years? Maybe even decades? He didn't know, and frankly didn't care that much anymore. It wasn't like time had any meaning any longer, considering the fact that no one aged… no one had aged since the merge between Valhalla and Gran Pulse. A timeless world with neither life nor death… as long as you only counted the aging part and not being killed by any other means.

The travel to Etro's temple had been rather uneventful. Hope had learned how to avoid the Chaos beasts long ago, and prided himself of being sneaky whenever he needed to be. He had however seen several monsters on the way through the dead buildings and was glad he didn't travel unarmed; two boomerangs and a few flashbangs for emergencies. One too many near-death-experiences had taught him a few things about taking precautions. The highest levers were however empty of monsters if he remembered correctly. They apparently found the crystal statue less interesting than the prospect of wayward wanderers who thought it would be a good idea to search the temple for valuables.

Hope sighed when his eyes fell on the gray marble pillars which flanked the final gateway between him and the throne room. The fissures and dust were hard to miss.

_To think this building used to be the center of civilization_, Hope thought bitterly.

That seemed to be nothing more than a distant dream. The centuries since then had taken their toll on his mind… most of the l'cie days had been wiped clean from his mind nowadays, and his days as director of the Academy and the main advocate for human independence had followed as time flowed forward. Most of the persons he had met had left his memories, corroded in his exhausted mind. He could barely remember his mother's face, and her voice had been completely washed away several centuries before.

Sadness stung in his chest. _How could someone forget his own mother?_ He berated himself. She had been the most important person in his life, one of the main reasons he tried to gain the ability to travel back in time… the one thing he simply couldn't let go of even though so many years had passed.

There were times when he considered ending his misery and simply jump into the sea of Chaos and be done with it. He wouldn't be the first, and probably not the last either. What happened in there? He didn't know, but it couldn't be any worse than the "life" he had "lived" since the Chaos had ravaged the world.

But no, he couldn't do that. There were more people like him, survivors over the century who slowly forgot their old lives and became lost souls in a dying world. He had once been their leader, and that made them his responsibility, even though he wasn't the director anymore.

"The Academy isn't its people or facilities", Hope said. "The Academy is the wish for independence which every human holds in his heart."

He turned towards Bhunivelze, the world he had given five centuries. A shelter, a safe haven for all of humanity. _Look how that turned out…_

He kept walking and couldn't help but notice the slight resemblances the building shared with the Academy headquarters. There was the restaurant with the ridiculously expensive toasts, and just beyond, right next to the throne had his office once been. _That time is lost… just like me…_

He didn't fully comprehend why he had ventured to the dead god's temple. He knew the woman in crystal stasis had been his mentor at one point, and afterwards the champion of Etro, but he would lie if he claimed he remembered much about her. Seeing her would usually make him remember bits and pieces, like her face and some encouraging words. But her name would mostly elude him… just another proof that whatever that was left of him slowly but surely died away.

He remembered he would visit her a few times per year in the beginning, in some act of desperation… he wanted her to wake up, he supposed. He wanted her to help him fix the world… return it to its former glory. It took a few decades for him to start lose hope and visit much more rarely until it became an sort of vacation away from what he spent most of the time: thinking! Simply sit around and think day in and out.

But this time was different. He had been plagued by nightmares for quite a while, nightmares involving rain, thunder, and brief flashes of Etro's temple and the woman sleeping inside.

He would usually disregard them as nothing of importance, just like any other dream, but there was something different about these dreams. Something compelled him to search for answers. Answers he hoped to find in the temple.

There was one more thing… a storm was gathering. He could feel it in the air, taste it in the water and hear it in the people's voices. Hope couldn't explain it, but there was one thing that he was certain of. The end of the world was approaching…

The throne room was as empty as he remembered it to be. There were a few footprints in the dust on the floor. Most likely belonging to his former comrades who at some point had traveled to the temple to pay their respect to the sleeping warrior. Hope hadn't talked to either of them for quite a while. He preferred the solitude of his own mind.

Hope sat down on the floor and turned upwards to the throne were he knew the woman would be siting, one leg over the other and a sword in her lap.

He remembered her name at the same time he realized she was missing. _Lightning!_

Hope shot up like an arrow from the floor. Since when had that happened? Had someone taken the statue? No, he didn't think so. It would be too much work and way too dangerous considering the stalking monsters.

"That means…",Hope didn't dare to say it.

He could only smile. Even if the world was coming to an end, there would be a storm to fight it. A storm much more devious than any other. Filled with raging thunder and healing warmth.

Hope saw a pair of _very_ recent footsteps leading towards the gateway he had emerged from.

_Yes, a storm is gathering_, he thought and slowly made his way back towards the outside. Time once again had a meaning. _Lightning Returns…_

**I wanted to play with the idea that Hope would start to lose his memories over the years and growing more and more solitary. I don't know what he'll be up to in Lightning Returns, maybe he never meets her directly and instead spends the entire game on Bhunivelze, thereby the need to communicate with a wireless devise. **

**What are your thoughts of this new game? **


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